Belonging
by Verdreht
Summary: At first, Stephen wasn't really sure where Connor belonged with them. Now that he's figured it out, though, the trouble's getting Connor to do the same. spoilers for s01e04 Stephen/Connor slash
1. Chapter 1

At first, Stephen hadn't known quite where Connor belonged in their little group. Cutter was the leader that gave them all direction, Abby was the spirit that gave them all a conscience, and Stephen himself was the muscle that kept them all on track. If anything, Connor would have been the brains, but Stephen had thought at the time that Cutter was all the brains they needed. The man was a genius, and eccentric enough to fill the part, so he just hadn't thought there was any need for Connor in the place.

And it wasn't just that he didn't fit into the categories Stephen made in his head. On missions when they were called out for the anomalies, it was like Connor didn't know where to put himself. He was always in the wrong place at the wrong time, always getting in the way. It annoyed the hell out of Stephen for the first bit. He was used to everything – every_one_ – having their proper place, and Connor did not.

It wasn't until the _arthropleura_ and all those giant bloody spidersthat Stephen started to realize he wasn't just an obstacle. He wasn't some blithering little college boy without a clue. For the first time, it had occurred to him that, beneath all the social awkwardness and the eclectic fashion, he really was sort of brilliant. Those archives he'd put together...sure he made the odd mistake, but that he'd managed to pull at that together anyhow was amazing by its own right.

That had been a little like a flood gate: the one revelation had made way for others. He was clever, sure enough. Beyond that, though, he was...actually sort of easy on the eyes. He was slight, Stephen figured, though the layers of too-big clothes he tended to wear didn't make him look it. Stephen had seen his thin wrists and caught enough glimpses of his hips and the v-lines of muscle at his pelvis when his shirt rode up to know he was slim, but muscled. And his face...it was neither round nor too sharp. His eyes had a downward slope that would've made him look drowsy had it not been for the constant spark in them.

Sure enough, he was clever _and_ dishy to boot. He had more quirks about him, though... The way he latched onto something and rambled about it until people were about ready to kill him. His knack for throwing out some random fact that was only _sort of_ relevant. The way he always found the corner of the room to sit in and couldn't seem to go even an hour or two without his beloved laptop. The way he fidgeted when he was nervous. The way he bit his lip when he was concentrating...

Rather than getting annoyed by all the quirks, though, like he normally did with everyone else – Abby's tendency to dance for no apparent reason drove him up the wall, and Cutter did this odd thing when he was talking about something he was happy about that made Stephen want to kill something – he actually thought Connor's oddities were a little charming. Hell, _all_ of Connor was charming, in a peculiar sort of way.

By the time the _hesperornis_ fiasco came about, Stephen was pretty bloody taken with him. It didn't so much bother him, either, that the one that got his pulse pounding was another bloke. He'd never cared much about that sort of stuff; it seemed trivial, and he believed wholeheartedly in going for what he wanted.

Problem being, what he wanted happened to want something else. Connor'd been about as subtle as a car crash on his feelings for Abby. That said, he wasn't altogether ready to throw in the towel. What Connor had for Abby wasn't much more than a schoolboy crush.

Still, he decided to be delicate about it. Like tracking, there were times when it was best to just stay back and read the signs. Connor was such a nervous bloke, always jumping when people reached for him too fast or shying away from close encounters. Stephen figured that was as good a place as any to start, and so he did. Just _touching him_...getting him to where he didn't start every time Stephen walked by him. They started small: the brush of a hand when they exchanged papers, the graze of a shoulder as they passed in the hall.

Just to remind him he belonged.

Things were going well on that front for a while, actually. Connor had only been startled into dropping an armful of papers twice that week, and he'd only knocked over his drink once when Stephen slid in next to him at the booth of the restaurant.

But then – a hitch. He'd gone to go fetch Abby to bring her in. Helen was talking and Cutter said he wanted them all there. He would get Abby, and then he'd track down Connor.

Of course, when he'd walked into Abby's apartment, he hadn't been expecting to take out two birds with the one stone. On the downside, he wasn't _entirely_ sure how to interpret seeing Connor come down the stairs of _Abby's_ flat in nothing but boxers and an undershirt.

On the upside, he got to admire the way that undershirt clung to a deceptive bit of muscle.

He couldn't help the smile that spread on his face as he peered over Abby's head at the approaching knicker-clad nerd. "I didn't know you were here," he said.

The smile was a little harder to hold as Connor came to stand behind Abby. "Ah, well, we're becoming close friends." He chuckled nervously, like he wasn't quite sure where to go next.

Abby, of course, was all too happy to move things along. "He's been chucked out of his flat, and he's sleeping on the sofa," she said.

Stephen felt the grin start to return at the news. That was good, sort of. He meant, it was bad Connor had been kicked out of his flat, but it was a massive relief to have a perfectly rational reason for Connor to be there.

"And the underwear?" Because that bore mentioning.

"Thermostat," both Abby and Connor said in what might've been unison if they hadn't both been stammering.

"Too hot," Connor said.

"It's broken."

Well, this was just getting better and better. As the two stood awkwardly, Stephen let his eyes flick down, and he couldn't resist a little barb in Connor's direction. "Nice legs."

As he walked past, Connor looked down at his legs and then back up. "Thanks," he said. "Oh!"

At first, Stephen wasn't sure what the exclamation was about, and he didn't rightly care as Connor came running up beside him just to pat him on the back and sit down on the settee while he went to investigate Abby's _other_ flatmates.

"I hate to break up the party," he said finally, "but you better get dressed. Helen's talking."

It had been an odd sort of day. First, chasing Helen into the anomaly – Christ, what a sight that had been – and then the dodo birds. When they'd first come through, he'd thought it was a nice sort of reprieve from giant carnivorous monsters and all the other madness they usually got. That, and it had been bloody hilarious watching Connor and the rest of the team trying to nab those daft little birds. And when they'd gotten them back through the anomaly, he'd thought they would be calling it an early evening, maybe even go out for some drinks or something.

He supposed he should've known better. Things were never that simple, and son enough, they were chasing after parasites that went between man-eating and mind-controlling.

And because when it rained, it poured, they hadn't gone long before finding out that one of _Connor's_ mates had been infected. He'd seen Connor face down massive prehistoric creatures and not seen him so scared. To his credit, he was holding it together well for the situation, especially when he was talking to his other mate, but Stephen caught glimpses when Connor thought no one was looking that he'd seem to have a millisecond break down. But then he'd pop right back up and act like he was in control.

To think these clowns deserved a friend like Connor...their idiocy had gotten them into this mess, and it was _pissing _Stephen off watching Connor suffer for it.

When they'd found "Tom" at the stadium, Stephen had been a squeeze of the trigger away from blowing this guy's brains out. He meant nothing to Stephen personally, and so far as he could figure it, he'd done nothing but hurt Connor. Beyond that, he was about to infect Abby, and so shooting him seemed like the best option.

Only Connor was in the way.

"Let him try it, let him try it," Cutter said. It wasn't what Stephen wanted to hear. It was bad enough having Abby in there with that parasite; the last thing Stephen wanted was for Connor to get in the thick of it, too.

But there was nothing he could do about it, so instead he just got ready to shoot in case he needed to.

"Tom," Connor said as he turned around to where his infected friend had Abby pinned to the ground. "Tom, it's me. Let her go, mate." And he kept talking. He got Tom's attention, which somehow only made Stephen feel worse. He couldn't see Connor's face, but he could hear the telltale tremor in his voice. He was so hurt, so scared, but he stood fast.

As Abby ran, though, Connor _did_ move, only in the wrong direction. He moved _closer_, squatting down in front of his friend, and Stephen thought he would never get the muscles in his chest to loosen after this. He couldn't hear them, not over the pounding of his chest.

And then Tom moved. It was quick, and Stephen felt his chest tighten. He didn't have a clear shot; Connor was in the way. He couldn't shoot Connor, but he couldn't let that parasite—

Nothing happened. Tom wasn't attacking Connor, and Connor wasn't running. He hadn't flinched back like he should've, he hadn't screamed or yelped or even made a bad joke like he did in so many other situations where he was terrified. No, he didn't run from the man in front of him. He held him. Like a brother, he stayed there.

That was the moment Stephen fell in love with Connor. Because even though he was terrified and scared and heartbroken, he stayed. He was brave when it counted, and Stephen thought the world of that.

Slowly, he lowered his gun. Not the whole way, but enough...this was Connor's place, and he knew how much it meant to Connor to be able to do this for his friend. He only wished Connor didn't have to do it alone. The pain he had to be in...it was unimaginable.

Beside him, he felt Abby take his arm and bury her face in it, but he wasn't paying attention to her. His eyes were on Cutter as he made his way over to Conner.

"I can't do this anymore," he heard Connor say, and it was like a knife had been lodged into his heart. Connor couldn't quit. Not so soon. Connor couldn't leave them.

Connor _belonged_ with them. With _him_.

He most certainly didn't belong standing next to the body of his dead friend. "Get him away from it," Stephen said under his breath, as if he could will Cutter into the action he himself wasn't able to perform. "He doesn't need to see."

As if he'd heard him, Cutter steered Connor away. They were talking, but Stephen couldn't hear what they were saying. All he could see was the soft smile that eventually managed to break onto Connor's face, and he knew then that Connor would stay.

Only then did Stephen remember how to breathe.


	2. Chapter 2

Things had gone a little bit mad after that. The trouble with public places was that the cleanup after was murder. The cleaners swept in as per usual, and suddenly the place was a nut house with people in suits and embroidered jackets hustling here and there. Stephen nearly got lost in it, dodging out of the way of people that seemed to have more to do than he did.

He didn't particularly care. His job was when the thing was still alive and kicking and the mess was still being made; let the other blokes take care of it after that. He was actually on his way out, only just before he made it through the archway of the stadium, something caught his eye.

Over to the side, down a short little corridor to what Stephen pegged to be the concession stand, a pair of telltale brown boots were sticking out. Looking a little harder, Stephen could make out what looked like arms wrapped around what he guessed to be a pair of legs.

He frowned. There was no questioning that it was Connor; the only question was what the bloody hell he was doing tucked away in that corner? Cutter had sent him home nearly an hour ago.

Since guessing at it wasn't going to get him anywhere but irritated, Stephen course-corrected and started down the hall instead. As he got closer, walking along the opposite wall, he was able to make out more and more of the younger man. He had his legs pulled up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them, and his head was bowed under his hat such that Stephen couldn't see his face.

Stephen slowed his step enough to give him time to think about how to approach this – there was no mistaking the trembling of Connor's shoulders for anything but crying – but eventually he came up with nothing and decided to wing it.

When he reached the doorway Connor was huddled against, he simply turned around and slid down the door beside him. It was a bit of a tight squeeze, the two of them in the doorway, but Stephen didn't mind.

"Oi," he said, "I wondered where you'd gotten off to."

Connor didn't even look up; he kept his head tucked into his knees. All the same, Stephen could hear the tremor in his voice and the way it caught. He was definitely crying. "Cutter sent you to find me?"

"Cutter thinks you left," Stephen said. "We all did, matter of fact. You can imagine my surprise, come to find you've been hiding in here the whole time." He gave Connor's shoulder a soft nudge to show he was kidding. Anything to get him to lift his head and give him one of those smiles he'd grown so fond of.

Nothing doing.

Stephen wouldn't be deterred, though. If Connor didn't feel like chatting just yet, then Stephen would fill the silence. "Why are you, by the way? Hiding, I mean. You're supposed to be home."

"Don't have one," Connor said. There was something decidedly sulky about his tone. Miserable and youthful at the same time.

Stephen frowned. That was right – the flat situation.

"I thought you were staying with Abby."

"I was," Connor said, raising his head just a bit from his arms. Stephen counted it a marked improvement. "I mean, I am. I just...it's not mine."

"Can't be too bad, sharing a house with a beautiful woman walking around in her underwear half the time." Another nudge.

This time, Connor actually did raise his head. Through the tear tracks on his cheeks and the redness in his eyes, Stephen was able to make out just a little flush of embarrassment colouring his otherwise pale face. And to his relief, there was just a hint of that glimmer back in Connor's eyes.

"I don't—she's not—it's really..." That was about when it seemed to don on Connor that Stephen was having a go at him, and the embarrassment became a full blushing smile.

Stephen only grinned in response and slid an arm around Connor's shoulders, pulling him close. "I know," he said. "I just wanted to make you smile."

The comment took Connor off guard, it seemed, and he cocked his head to the side just a bit as he dragged his sleeve across his red eyes. If anything, it just made them water more. "W—w—why would you...why would want to do that?" Connor said. From the way he was stumbling over the words, rubbing his face, and refusing to look Stephen in the eyes, Stephen would've wagered he'd flustered him.

Connor wanted to know why, then. Why he liked seeing him smile so much, why he hadn't just walked on and left him to wallow in his misery?

So Stephen showed him. Reaching out to cup Connor's lightly-stubbled cheek, leaned over and pressed his lips to Connor's.

It was like nothing he'd felt before. Connor's lips were perfect – soft enough to meld to Stephen's, but firm enough to make him _feel_ it – and for a long moment, the world seemed to stop. It was only by sheer force of will that Stephen managed to make himself back up enough to gauge the younger man's reaction.

Connor's eyes were closed, his lips still lightly parted from the kiss. As Stephen watched, though, his dark eyes began to peel open, revealing a dazed sort of look that Stephen didn't quite know how to interpret.

After too long a time had passed without an answer, Stephen couldn't take it anymore. "Connor?" he said.

That did a good enough job of snapping Connor out of his daze.

"Right," he said, sitting back a bit. Stephen let him go, but he took it as a good sign that Connor didn't make to move the arm he had around his shoulders. "Right, that was..."

Something told Stephen that he wasn't going to get a definite response out of Connor for a while. He'd been through a lot today; he was in rough shape. Stephen could still feel him shaking against him, and the tears hadn't quite dried in his too-red eyes. All the chaos, all the pain of the day...at the very least, he needed to get out of there.

"Come on," he said, rising to his feet.

Connor looked confused.

"It's getting dark out. I'll give you a ride back to Abby's," he said, and he held out a hand to help him up. With a sort of dazed look – like he couldn't quite get his head around what was going on and was just going with the motions – he reached up and took Stephen's hand. Luckily, Connor hardly weighed any more than Abby, so Stephen had an easy enough time pulling him up to his feet.

They made it as far as the exit to the stadium before the shit hit the fan. It was just Stephen's luck that the moment they happened to be leaving was the moment the cleanup guys were wheeling out the gurney with the black bag that Stephen knew contained Connor's friend.

The moment Connor's eyes fell to it, it was like someone had physically struck the younger man. His legs seemed to buckle and his breath seemed to leave his body in a rush. To that point, Stephen had been steering him down the hall with a hand on the small of his back; now, though, he had to grab him to keep him from dropping to the ground. Light as Connor was, it presented a bit of a challenge when he froze, and it was all Stephen could do to keep him moving.

"Don't look," he said, but he'd no sooner said it than Connor started towards the gurney. Stephen only just managed to step in front of him to block his path. It seemed Connor wouldn't be deterred, though. He fought against Stephen, trying to push past him even as Stephen wrestled him back towards the exit.

"Let me go," Connor said. "Steph—Stephen, let me go."

The more Stephen pushed, the harder Connor struggled. But Stephen had always been the stronger of the two, and though a couple of times, his feet literally left the ground as he practically threw himself against him.

"Stephen!" Connor fought all the harder. Stephen was honestly impressed, only he couldn't quite appreciate it in the moment. He just wanted to get Connor away from there, and the squirrely little bloke wasn't making it easy on him.

"I'm sorry," Stephen said as he forced him out into the parking lot. Mercifully, the gurney went one way as half-walked, half-pushed Connor the other. When he finally managed to get him into the passenger seat of his car, he stood in front of him. "Hey, just take a second to catch your...Connor, look at—"

Stephen realized with a miserably twist of his gut that Connor was still trying to look around him at the gurney they were loading in the back of the van. He kept craning his neck this way and that, until finally Stephen caught his face between his hands and forced him to look him in the eyes.

"Look at me," he said firmly, and Connor had no choice this time. Those hazel eyes finally met Stephen's bright blues, and Stephen felt his own eyes burn at the agony in them. He was too young, too innocent. People like him weren't supposed to feel pain like this. _Connor_ wasn't supposed to feel pain like this.

Stephen wasn't really sure how it happened, but the next moment, Connor's face was buried in his chest, and he had his arms around the smaller man. Harsh sobs wracked his slight form, and it wasn't long before Stephen felt moisture begin to seep through his shirt.

He'd never heard such a heartrending sound in all his life, he realized. Such a happy soul crying like he was. And there was nothing Stephen could do to stop it. He couldn't shoot some monster or beat up some bully. There was nothing to fight, nothing to fix. All he could do was be there.

But if that was all he could do, then he was going to do it right. As Connor cried, he held him, his fingers carding absently through the young man's soft hair and his feet rocking on the ground. The sobs that shook Connor's slight frame shook him too, to his very core; they broke his heart.

"Shh, I know," he said. "I know." Truly, he did. He knew what it was like to lose friends, to lose loved ones. He wasn't sure he'd ever _felt_ like Connor did, though. When he cared for something, he did so unreservedly. He gave everything, gave his all, and now he was having to suffer for it. Stephen wasn't sure he'd ever felt that.

Not before, at least.

"It's my fault," Connor said, his voice muffled by Stephen's shirt. "If I hadn't—if I wasn't—Tom wouldn't have—"

"No, Connor." Stephen forced him to look up, tipping a hand under his chin. Connor's face was more ashen before, and his red eyes and nose stood out too starkly in comparison as tears streamed down his cheeks. He was trying so hard to keep it back; his lip was trembling and his jaw was clenched tightly. As Stephen went to brush the tears from his cheeks, he jerked his head back. He started to turn around in his seat altogether, but Stephen stopped him, bracing his hands on his shoulders. "Hey," he said, and then he pulled the younger man into a firm embrace. Even as Connor gave half-hearted tugs and shoves at his chest, he held him, cradling his head against his shoulder. "_Hey_...this isn't your fault. None of it, and you know that. You did everything you could do for him; there was nothing you could do to stop what happened, understand?"

It took Connor a second to realize that the question wasn't rhetorical. Stephen wanted an answer; he wanted him to say that he understood, that it wasn't his fault and that he'd done all he could.

And after a long moment, Connor finally nodded into Stephen's shoulder. It wasn't quite what he was after, but thinking about it, Stephen wasn't sure Connor could manage anything more at the time. No, it was enough that he hadn't denied it, enough that he'd stopped fighting. He'd stopped pushing away from Connor and instead tucked his head down into the crook of Stephen's shoulder, his fingers twisting in Stephen's shirt.

The fit was dying down, it seemed. The sobs weren't quite so harsh, and it took hardly more than a whisper to cut through the otherwise silent air around the truck. "Me and Cutter and Abby, we couldn't do this without you. I know it hurts right now...I know all of this seems like too much and it feels like everything's off and nothing's right, but just give it a bit."

"And then what?" Connor said, his voice cracking around the words. He sounded so pitiful, so lost.

Stephen just held him tighter, stroking his thumb along the back of Connor's neck. "And then you'll realize," he said, "that this is where you belong."


End file.
